Diogenes of Babylon

Diogenes of Babylon (also known as Diogenes of Seleucia; Greek: Διογένης Βαβυλώνιος; Latin: Diogenes Babylonius; c. 230 – c. 150/140 BC[1]) was a Stoic philosopher. He was the head of the Stoic school in Athens, and he was one of three philosophers sent to Rome in 155 BC. He wrote many works, but none of his writings survive, except as quotations by later writers.

Together with Carneades and Critolaus, he was sent to Rome to appeal a fine of hundred talents imposed on Athens in 155 BC for the sack of Oropus. They delivered their epideictic speeches first in numerous private assemblies, then in the Senate. Diogenes pleased his audience chiefly by his sober and temperate mode of speaking.[3]

Cicero speaks of him as deceased by 150 BC,[4] and since Lucian claims that he died at the age of 80,[5] he must have been born around 230 BC. There is some evidence, however, that he may have lived to around 140 BC.[6]

In addition, it appears from Philodemus that he wrote extensive works On Music and On Rhetoric.[16] Some aspects of his views on these two subjects are recoverable from the critical remarks to be found in Philodemus' works on these two subjects.[16] There are several passages in Cicero from which we may infer that Diogenes wrote on other subjects also, such as duty, the highest good, and the like.[17]

^"[the traditional] chronology clashes with the dates for Mnesarchus and Dardanus and with the crucial events in the life of Antiochus of Ascalon. The date of Diogenes' death can reasonably be put forward at least a decade, to around 140." Tiziano Dorandi, Chapter 2: Chronology, in Algra et al. (1999) The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy, page 41. Cambridge.